Not that anyone asked, but there are a few items about Star trek you may be interested in. All of these come from the books written by Shatner, Nimoy or their Producer Justin.
It is not generally known that when William Shatner signed his original contract for Star Trek he was to receive 5% of the profits. That’s right Shatner is part owner of Star Trek. One of the reasons his cast did not like him is at the end of the day when they needed to shoot close-up for reaction shots he would not let them go into overtime. They hated him for this but years later when they found out he was part owner they understood what he was doing.
Shatner and Nimoy had what was called in television and movies a “most favored nation” clause. This meant that after the third season and into the movies whatever one got the other was given. So Shatner and Nimoy teamed up and every other movie one would hold out for more money. James do Hann just blamed William Shatner for this saying that there would have been more movies had he asked for less money he never knew about Nimoy.
Nimoy wanted to direct Star Trek III, but the head of Paramount, Eisner, at first refused him. He told Nimoy that he didn’t like that he had written into his contract that Spock would have to die at the end of Star Trek to. That was a burden for the company. Nimoy had heard this rumor so many times he told Eisner would you pull out the contract there’s no such thing in there. Eisner did that and Nimoy got the job.
Remember that most famous nation clause I mentioned? That’s how William Shatner got to direct Star Trek five because they let Nimoy do Star Trek three and four. It was a terrible movie but it was not all Shatner’s fault. If you read all about it they so undercut the budget and dramatically altered the script so this was not the movie he signed up for. And a big surprise the supporting cast that didn’t like him as an actor thought he was a very good director.
The year after Star Trek was canceled the Nielsen rating system came out with demographics. Before that time they can tell you how many people were watching but the networks always wanted to know who was watching. They wanted the young demographic which we know so much about today. Star Trek was low in the total ratings but one the demographics came out they discovered it was one of the highest TV shows among the people they wanted watching!!!! But it was a year too late.
Desilu the producer of Star Trek, Mission Impossible, Mannix and the Lucy show. Because of their success they went out of business. Huh?
Back then shows did not go into reruns until they finish their network run. And it’s a myth to believe that producers got a great idea and brought them to the network, that’s not how TV worked. NBC announced that they wanted a action-adventure Western on Tuesdays from 7:30 to 8:30 and would pay $185,000 an episode. That’s right, the networks told the producers what they wanted. Gene Roddenberry saying that Star Trek was the wagon train to the stars, said that they can deliver a TV show at that price. At first NBC did not believe in and asked them to do a pilot for that amount of money. Of course they redid the pilot when NBC didn’t like it but approved it could be done.
But at the time, Star Trek, Mission Impossible Mannix and Lucy show cost between 30 and $50,000 more an episode than they were getting paid. Of course they would make it up on the show when it went into reruns. But they will losing over $100,000 a week then, which would be over $1 million a week now. So losing $25 million a year was not something Desilu could do so they had to sell to Paramount.
When they decided to do a movie they wanted a big time producer so they chose Robert Wise who had done The Day the Earth Stood Still, Sound of Music and West Side Story. But he had never seen a Star Trek episode. Leonard Nimoy was an illegal fight with paramount because they were using his image overseas to sell products and not giving him any money. So he at first refused to be in the movie and Robert Wise didn’t care because he never saw Star Trek. It was Robert Wise’s wife who told him that Leonard Nimoy had to be in the movie.
When it comes to music the writers of the lyrics and music split the royalties 50-50. So the songwriter gets as much as the composer. Believe it or not, to make money, gene Roddenberry wrote lyrics to the Star Trek theme and so every time it’s played he gets 50% of the money.
Beyond
The rim of the star-light
My love
Is wand'ring in star-flight
I know
He'll find in star-clustered reaches
Love,
Strange love a star woman teaches.
I know
His journey ends never
His star trek
Will go on forever.
But tell him
While he wanders his starry sea
Remember, remember me.
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